The Radical Redefinition

I would like to anchor this provisional meaning of troll, trolls and trolling in your mind. You do not need to accept it as true. Just keep it in mind as a common denominator meaning for the signifiers “troll,” “trolling,” and “trolls,” in all of their contemporary manifestations:

“Emotion-moving activity of body, speech, and mind.”

A troll can be a person, a personality, an activity or any activity of body, speech, or mind which contains an emotion-moving meme. A flick of an eyebrow, a wave of a finger or mere words can act as a troll. So there is what’s known in linguistics as semantic spread: the person writing the troll can be a troll! Everything (“any activity”) I recognise as trolling, troll, and trolls in Disinfolklore moves emotions and has the quality of an activity of body, speech or mind.

Source: Disinfolklore (5)

This definition is broader than you might expect. It encompasses advertising, courting, intriguing, curiosity-stirring — all are forms of trolling. An evangelical preacher driving the emotions of their audience. A neural network algorithm driving our social media feed. Our pets, our lovers, our children, advertisers. We are trolled a million times a day.

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